Posts Tagged ‘Social Software’

RECESSION? (Because!) Nothing is more painfully obvious than the results of bad decisions – made “because” of someone’s illogical motive. Illogical motives – again painfully obvious to everyone else(“because…”) – are those based on something other than good logic. Illogical decisions (like ‘little white lies’) will not stand on their own merits and must be supported by other props (like more lying). Nor will they be corrected or relieved until evaluated – by a few incisive questions being asked.

RECOVERY? (Root Cause) The logical basis for any viable solution begins with information – obtained from the stake-holders themselves – and objectively parsed against the issues that aggregate to the visible symptoms of the problem – and its actual impacts.

It is just that obvious and just that simple and just that difficult. Making that direct connection (between cause and effect) is entirely possible and routinely avoided – “because!”.

Many may have missed the recent celebration of the event on December 16 that once helped establish and save our democracy under somewhat similar circumstances. Little was published in the (formerly unbiased?) press about how (without the aid of the collective voice of the internet) multiple citizens once stood up- and stood for- equitable treatment…at the ‘Boston Tea Party’. Perhaps we overlooked it “because” we were too busy listening to politicians tell us that we now had to bail out this one and that one (of their constituents) “because..”. Perhaps those companies could have avoided being in that situation, but were now struggling “because..”. Perhaps the workers in those companies who were intimately familiar with the issues were not asked by their leaders about their opinions for solutions “because”. Perhaps other stake-holders who were not represented at board rooms and in Congress, were now feeling the impacts…”because”.

Why do people vote for politicians? (because they want to be represented by them). Why do politicians run for office? (because they want to influence the system). Why do entities lobby for favors from politicians? (because they want (in)equitable treatment). Why does this system fail to serve the entire population? – again “because” it is not transparent and accountable to ALL those it claims to ‘equitably’ represent.

Why can this be? – “because” what gets done is not DIRECTLY visible, reviewed, overseen, or influenced by the stake-holders. Why is there no direct review or oversight? – “because” the representative are attempting to hide political motives instead of exhibiting visible statesmanship. Why? – “because; Why? – “because”; Why? – “because”, etc.

If it weren’t “politically incorrect” to challenge the status quo – we might not be ‘mis-represented’ by our politicians or in this status (recession). If that statement is at all true – we will not get out of this situation until we begin to ask the right questions and get past the “because” and find the root cause(s). Have WE had enough yet – Is anyONE else ready for true change ?

One notable individual once clarified the challenge for all times and all places and all people. One individual became “the change that he wanted to see” (Ghandhi), and issued that simple challenge for the rest of us to follow. Since then, many have realized that ‘they are the root cause’ and that until THEY take a personal stand, the situation will not get any better “because” they are still “BEing” passive (not inquiring or resisting). Passivity always ensures that the situation will be passed along – predictably going from bad to worse, “because”. History is predictable in repeating itself in that regard.

If we are to avoid repeating that history, it will demand statesmanship again – or it could (again?) ‘brew up’ some anarchy. I’d like to say that I’ve had enough of that kind of history and am ready to BE-come a part of the ‘change’. I’d like to believe that there actually is a chance for change we can BE-lieve in. We have been promised (by politicians) that change is coming. That change will demand transparency that has not been widely implemented. It will demand that the voice of the stake-holders is not silenced from their public proclamation platforms or questionably purged from those ‘public’ records just “because”.

If..we care, ALL we have to do is be willing to BE a part of ALL those who will seek the root cause of what we ALL have allowed to occur. The solution will become visible in that answer. The internet (for now) affords us the freedom to assemble virtually unencumbered to collectively inquire and influence what we individually and globally want to BE-come as citizens, communities, and countries. The answer is in the questions – all we have to do is ASK4 it – and become united in providing our individual insight and protecting our mutual interests across our
internet-enabled
U-Netted Nations.

Standing on the bridge to our collective future, that patriot that fires the ‘shot’ that can be heard around the world may now (again?)…simply be asking …”WHY?”

Want real cooperation, progress, CHANGE ? – Dare to ASK4™ it…?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

That depends! Relevance is: pertinent, applicable, important, germane, appropriate, and significant. Context is: background, circumstance, environment, perspective, or framework. Already you may notice the difference and again you may ask: so what?

These two co-dependent attributes bear heavily on our past, and our current, and our future life and lifestyles. Depending on what has already happened, we may have to adjust our framework or perspective to be more applicable or appropriate. Depending on what is happening, it may be significant or just a passing circumstance. Depending on what happens next, we may be empowered or severely impacted.

And now even most of the items we interact with and the environments that we interact within are sensing and sensitive to whatever we are doing, giving us and others real-time factual (data) and visual (video) feedback.

Whatever we do and whoever we do it with can become known by anyone else in less than one second. Our reality is now being echoed in the virtual dimensions of the web.

Our existence is being captured and cataloged, represented and researched, interpreted and evaluated in real time by a universe of collecting devices and assessment processes – and by ‘those’ people. We are ‘those people’ – both evaluating and being evaluated.

In this new virtual world, we are no longer just passive recipients of online information. We are now the active expositors and engaged participants, forced into a new type ‘global conversation’ and virtual interaction that demands a new approach.

It requires that we find a new common framework in which to collect our diverse perspectives and through which to derive an equitable consensus – each within the local context of our somewhat unique needs – while collectively maintaining the relevance of a global perspective.

Relevance has changed little – what was important to us still is. What has changed more is context. As we get together virtually, no one has established the framework for our new form of conversation – or the rules within that new interaction process. Memberships and attendance and locations and parliamentary procedures no longer dictate the house rules of our orderly conduct. Borders and nationality and treaties no longer establish preference or privilege across this expanded network. We are all one and the same virtual community in this new ‘flat earth society’ where transparency is the value behind its information currency – in an online (and off-line) relationship economy.

Your value to me and mine to you – now depends on how well we interact and support our mutual benefits… one-to-one-to-many. Diversity of opinion is expected, necessary, and must be equitably considered by all. And the system itself must require and then enforce this approach.

• Only a self-governance approach can now represent everyone.
• Only a self-correcting approach can adjust to the constant change.
• Only a self-policing system can prevent decisions that could deny us these intended results.

A simple way to ensure this is by formalizing a familiar way of thinking; and adopting it as our consistent way of collaborating – around the world. Rather than amend to exhaustive rules, we can engage a sequence of ubiquitous questions that dynamically:
• 1) capture our issues and
• 2) dissect our challenges and
• 3) extract our options – objectively.
Only transparency OF the participants can ensure that this system remains accountable TO them. To-date, not even the United Nations has a methodology to accomplish that. Tyranny is the unfortunate alternative.

Any anarchy that is identified becomes the immediate challenge to be resolved by all within this new framework. By merely agreeing to use this self-managing approach at each of our interactions, we can all then enjoy its shared benefits.

We all have needs and we all want solutions. We all need to be heard and we all want to be appreciated. That’s the reason that people join groups like MySpace, and post their presence on Facebook, and pontificate on their own blogs. By syndicating its structured approach across these diverse platforms, this uniform framework can convert unraveled ‘threaded’ discourse into ‘collaboration on purpose’ and change meaningless chat into meaningful conversations. No issue can occur that cannot be equitably addressed by the ASK4 process and resolved by our self-managed cooperation across its U-Netted Nations.

That suggests that it can be beneficial in personal relationships, business decisions, or international détente. These are the arenas in which we all participate.

• That is the universal CONTEXT in which this can become RELEVANT
– to each of us.

• It is perhaps also the way we can become RELEVANT to each other
– within this new CONTEXT.

Want real cooperation, progress, CHANGE ? – Dare to ASK4™ it…?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

If we all seek ‘answers’ – then there must be ‘questions’ from which answers would of course result. Instead, we are often busy seeking ways to be heard – rather than listening. And if listening for the best answers is the better approach, shouldn’t we be seeking the BEST ‘questions’ (like that one for instance)?. For anything to change, some things have to be decided first:

Who gets to decide (representation)

How will they(we) decide (objectivity)

Who gets the benefits of the change (impacts)

When will the changes take effect (priority)

And, there are certainly more questions…

In their recent book ‘How The Wise Decide‘, authors Aaron Sandoski and Bryn Zeckhauser provide six fundamental principles that are consistently used by the successful leaders whom they studied. Their observations confirmed that these six concepts are both true and useful for anyone, universally:

Go to the Source

Fill a Room with Barbarians

Conquer the Fear of Risk

Make Vision Your Daily Guide

Listen with Purpose

Be Transparent

If those are true for business, how would they work for government, city councils, non-profits, fraternal or religious groups, or even our individual thought patterns? That is another good question. How would our relationships, communities, or nations work if we were consistently guided in those principals, in that process, and toward the proven benefit of ‘success’? What core questions can give us those answers, those results?.

The conviction to find those questions is a challenge I embraced after reflecting on broken conversations, broken relationships, broken processes, broken companies, broken churches, broken governance, and the broken lives that lay in the wake of all those patterns of broken thinking. Again, I do not wish to lay claim, just reflect that in my own parallel experience I too am a believer, witness, and recipient of the missed opportunities of the past.

However, I am also now aware of the unlimited power that is possible in the future by these truths and the ‘profound’ questions that could change our way of thinking – about our beliefs, about each other, about our world.

Turns out that it may take only six simple and familiar questions to change our way of thinking – for good. Since four questions form the core process, I have called it ASK4™ – for now. The other two questions relate to us as people – on which the process depends and for whom the benefits accrue. The questions can be used as a way to:

Make Vision My Daily Guide – goal-focused (hurdle-aware)

Fill a Room with Barbarians – relish others’ opinions

Conquer the Fear of Risk – allow for unlimited outcomes

Go to the Source – drop my ‘because’/get to the root cause

Listen with Purpose – retain vision while allowing for options

Be Transparent – accept my limits and seek the highest good

By viewing the world through the simple 6-question lens, it is possible to easily and consistently engage these principles in any situation to:

Normalize the perspective – to enable any participant at any level in any culture/language to describe THEIR situation/need/or offer

Formalize the process – for collecting everyone’s feedback so that forward progress can be initiated/tracked/completed/measured

Legitimize participants – by evaluating and then endorsing those thought leaders who cooperate to craft viable solutions

Organize involvement– so that everyone can share in the creation of viable solutions

– so that we all can…

Realize – these same cooperative benefits, globally

As now defined ASK4™ is useful as a tool for process improvement. It can also become a powerful online tool for ‘crowd-sourcing’. It does change our conversations, it will change our collaboration, it can change our consensus, or even CHANGE – our world.

We’ll see…

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

That’s why information is so important to making critical decisions. Ask anyone and you will get an opinion – or two. Then ask for the reason behind their opinion and you will eventually uncover some vested interest, the true desire that is being leveraged ‘because..’ that need is what is REALLY wanted. We need to be on the critical path toward the actual benefit. Instead, we waste our energy on misplaced efforts based on some mis-stated intentions.

What’s the ‘carbon footprint’ of misinformation?

Why wouldn’t it be better to actually ‘state’ the real issue, identify the real cause, address that real need, and create real and lasting solutions? If information is the ‘vehicle’, then perhaps it has to do with how we’re ‘driving’.

Who is at the wheel, and where are ‘they’ taking us..?

Imagine getting on a bus marked ‘Downtown’ and arriving instead at the dead end of some country road. Recent interest in ‘The Press’ has begun to uncover the accidental if not intentional collusion of those who would ‘suppress’ or overlook important insights, invite us on board with their ‘weighted’ opinions, and then wrongfully take us to uninformed conclusions, ineffective decisions, and unintended results. What information leads us to global decisions that lead us to wars? What influences are behind the efforts to place troops in harms way – or even call them home again, perhaps before ultimate victory? How could Hillary have lost to Barrack? What insight has been ‘overlooked‘ that perhaps even now could change results – if it was uncovered, remained unbiased, and then made public to everyone’s benefit?

Whether personal, secular, religious, political, or governmental, any incremental ‘white lie’ (or mis-statement that we might overlook as just ‘spin’) always aggregates to a larger mis-perception, and eventually to some level of ‘tyranny’. Unfortunately, our personal DECISION processes, including our political systems and voting choices, ride on this broken vehicle, delivering us to unintended locations and even greater peril.

It has to stop – and today is the ONLY time we are alloted!

Tomorrow we will have already been mislead by managed news channels, today’s biased pundits (‘spin doctors’?) and their misplaced or intentional beguiling. Our destiny may already be some unintended location from which there may be no easy return.

We can’t stop some global tyranny without addressing personal responsibility – OURS (not theirs). We (each) need to know the truth and share the truth so we can each act in our individual and collective interest.

We can not collectively get to the truth by being ‘politically correct’ and agreeing to overlook those little ‘unimportant’ nuances that serve the other person ‘because…’ that’s where they want us to go – for their self-interest.

Our challenge is always ‘to challenge’..! The truth will surface.

Clearly, obviating the truth can result in lack of clarity, confusion, or even powerful propaganda to re-direct the minds and decisions of those who ‘count’ (or vote). Are you impressed, suppressed, depressed – ?

Whose opinion shapes your decisions?

Whose ‘bus’ are you riding -where is it REALLY going?

Why aren’t YOU ‘driving’ your own thought processes?

Where are you currently – need a ride back ‘downtown’..?

Maybe it’s time to ASK4™ it..

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

…or DISQUALIFIED!! Olympic contenders fear that word – and so should the rest of us. “Unfit to Compete” – imagine being suspended for such a reason. Yet, according to the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (www.ahrq.gov), “all US adults could be overweight in 40 years”.

While that is serious enough, there is a parallel universe of contenders, in business. Their habits of ‘excess’ have positioned them in exactly the same place where their ability to compete is diminished. They are too top-heavy in management or carrying too large a ‘spare tire’ of unproductive personnel who follow antiquated ‘training’, inefficient processes, and the like. While some struggle and defend their inability to loose this ‘poundage’, others have found ways to trim budgets and become ‘lean’ and more ‘agile’ in their practices. Most have done so by returning to a proven diet of basic ‘food groups’ of business importance. And in an interesting parallel, many of those same thought leaders have also realized the business benefits of that same healthy approach in the lifestyles of their personnel. They have all found that common basic solution. rather than giving up and quitting.

Seth Goodin in his book – ‘The DIP‘ looks (perhaps as one-of-a-kind) on the subject of ‘quitting’. Having been trained on a diet of “try-try-try”, the mere subject made me reluctant to consider its contents. What became clear after listening to his video interview – is that

true Olympians don’t practice everyone else’s sport.

They first consider their chances – and then focus on ONLY their own skill – to its excellence. Individually they can be at their best, and collectively as a team they can then rack up more ‘gold’ than competitors.

We need that Olympic reminder every four years. Somewhere along the way to life’s ‘games’, many have abandoned some of those principles – in favor of letting everyone ‘train’ everyone else to ‘eat’ whatever they want, letting anyone ‘participate’, and then giving everyone a ‘medal’. What that may be leading to is not only unhealthy individuals but also

unproductive companies and even indefensible nations.

As we enter the new relationship economy, the online global competition can uncover every possible flaw in our ‘routines’, openly, in front of the entire world, and in a matter of seconds. While we may prefer a quick fix or cosmetic surgery cover-up, the new transparency of the internet will expose how out-of-shape we truly are – individually and collectively. It will dynamically measure how we adjust to each other as team members and our global standings as well.

The challenge – and the opportunity – all lie in how we accept our individual responsibility to become ‘fit’ for this global competition.

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Piled high on the heap of human experience is the visible evidence of our misplaced effort and ineffective decisions. Perhaps forgotten are the words of prophets and sages.

Visible to those who will look closely are the patterns of information, insight, consensus, and initiative that resulted in each set of historical conditions. Taken as a model, that sequence can afford the incremental benefits that can aggregate to sustainable progress. Ignored, the results will testify to individual ignorance, global waste.

No matter what the situation or condition or issue, certain core things are common and can easily be described, evaluated, proposed, adjusted or initiated, and then considered again to ensure forward progress. Since each such structured approach creates a resulting end-point, other similarly structured components can be leveraged off that prior foundation. Repeat that consistently and your incremental insight becomes organized infrastructure, enterprise management, global value.

Let’s convert that to reality. In his book ‘Business School for People Who Like Helping People’ – Robert Kyosaki presents his tetrahedron model of the learning pyramid. It is composed of four elements of information or facets of knowledge. Ever wonder why a university was comprised of four colleges – that have attendees that also represent four personalities? Perhaps each person (type) is a ready-made component that can assimilate well in one of four dimensions but share a convergent quest to better serve together in their aggregated world.

Do they want group consensus – help them find and share individual insight. Want them to launch large initiatives – help them manage each of their individual activities. There has to be a model and it must be effective in its smallest dimension to have integrity at its ultimate aggregated infrastructure design.

Do they want better government and (less ‘politics’) – help them to choose STATESMEN (not mere politicians). Do they want democracy and liberty for all – help them prevent individual anarchy. Anarchy ignores the model of cooperation, and its lack of ethics treads on the rights of others – at all levels.

The model itself can also become tyranny – if it is not kept true to form at the basic design element level. Each decision has to be both formalized and co-managed by ALL those it is designed to represent. Nothing can be added to or taken from its core structure or it no longer fits everyone – or works for anyone.

What is that minimal structure that can:

share divergent insight objectively

represent all stakeholders equitably

find uniform consensus on root cause

spawn initiatives that are sustainable

and above all, prevent the tyranny of excess constraint?

There are only four questions that apply to the incremental level and they can be scaled to the aggregate infrastructure level as well. Used as a way of thinking, I will gain insight. Shared as a means for our discussion, we can create a vision. As the basis of our collaboration, we can find a consensus. Mapped to our activity, it gives us focused direction. Polled against our initiatives it measures our progress. And should anything occur that is not to our individual or group liking, we can all check it against its own core design for clarification, resolution, and convergence into our co-managed decisions and self-improving results. It supports meaningful change – 24/7/365.

It’ so simple that anyone could have thought of it – and some may already have. What they may not have noticed is that it has a familiar approach. The only rules are that WE must all ‘ASK4’ it.

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

This ‘tennis’ commercial for The Ladders (online resumes) depicts job search as a tennis match – with few if any rules, and everyone getting in on the game – ALL at once.

Imagine yourself somewhere in this picture. You are…in the game – and someone’s at fault!

This metaphor has many more applications, like showing the current state of the internet – social networking in particular. Everyone wants to be on the court – serving up their opinion or offering, standing behind the net that separates them from the ‘other side’, or trying to referee others who have served up something that is clearly out of bounds – “FAULT!!”…

Problem is (in WEB 2.0), there is no pre-qualification, no boundaries, no rules for winning, no game plan. Consider the Infosphere of the internet in which anyone can utter those words that pre-announce our fateful demise: “Here, hold my beer and watch this…”. Seen the latest idiot’s 15 seconds of infamy video?

Online I can out-shout you, can out-rant you, can out-perform you,,, ad nausea and etcetera. In the freedom that came with this self-publishing world, anyone can say anything, anytime, to anyone else – often with little positive effect. While rushing to have a say in the infinite open space of the web, we forgot to notice that total democracy can equate to total anarchy.

Who’s at fault for all that – WE are.

But ‘we’ can’t change that – unless ‘I’ choose to do so – and come to understand and appreciate and adhere to at least a few simple agreements.

How can “I” change all that? One insight at a time! One conversation at a time! One consensus at a time! One decision at a time! One initiative at a time! Then having done that, one re-consideration at a time!

The realization that content is only as useful as its relevance is now at the forefront of the Semantic WEB 3.0. We are now advancing (back) to the structured approach that partitions our conversations and sequences our steps toward progress. Any database architect or project manager could have seen this dilemma coming and offered an insight if not a solution, if anyone was paying attention. Its hard to be heard as an ‘official’ when (virtually) everyone (else) is also in charge. For now there is no universally recognized approach. That will have to be one of the first things to change, and then keep changing.

It is nice to want to give everyone some playing time. But to do so at least requires a defined court, a defined manner and time to play, some means of determining official results so the next players can take the court as well.

Game On..?

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.